Pool type games are games of skill which require players to project where one ball will strike another ball, in order to propel the latter to a desired location on the playing surface. The desired location may be a pocket of a pool table, for example, or may be another ball, such as an object ball of a carom billiard type game. Pool type games demand great precision in striking a ball in exactly the right location and at an appropriate angle so as to propel the ball in a direction which will have the intended result.
One aspect of understanding the effect of specific ball trajectories is identifying exactly where one ball must strike the next ball. A common intuitive approach is to plan each shot around the center of the balls. This approach is actually correct only when balls and targets are arranged in a straight line. Any deviation from the straight line situation, which is actually infrequent in actual play, requires an adjustment in planning shots.
That is, the player must account for one point on the surface of one ball contacting a particular point on the surface of the struck ball. This differs from the center-to-center intuitive approach described above in that angled shots, or those which are misaligned as that refers to the infrequent straight line alignment, in that the player must account for the radius of each ball as the geometric centers of the respective balls are displaced from the outer surface of each ball by a magnitude equal to the radius of the respective balls.
This skill comes intuitively to some, and in others may develop with practice and be subconsciously acquired. It is very discouraging to those who have recently taken up pool type games should this skill not be intuitive, or should the skill develop slowly.
There exists a need to expedite this skill in developing players.